On a Monday morning many years ago, Jacinto Benros’ parents were dressed in their finest clothing as if they were going to a party.

Benros, now 80, and his parents were one of the few Jewish families on the Cape Verdean islands. His father — who was a municipal official — and mother were going to a Catholic Church to be baptized. A local priest had pressured Benros’ father to have his family baptized or else his public office would be in jeopardy.

“We had to be baptized in a hurry,” said Benros, who today lives in Central Falls, R.I., and does not practice any religion. He remembered the pressure — overt and subtle — the Jewish community experienced when he was growing up in Cape Verde when it was still a Portuguese colony.

“I never wrote about this, but I always wanted to, so that people can know that the Jews were in one way or another persecuted,” Benros said.

That story is just beginning to be told, thanks to the efforts of the Cape Verde Jewish Heritage Project, a nonprofit that works with the descendants of Cape Verdean Jews to document their story.

Working with Cape Verdean government authorities, the organization has renovated a Jewish burial site in Praia, the capital city of Cape Verde. Americans, Moroccans and Europeans will join Cape Verdean officials in rededicating the small, restored burial site, which contains 10 tombstones, during a ceremony on May 2.

“The tombstones, they’re horizontal slabs, were sinking into the ground. We worked in conjunction with the municipality to figure out what would be the best way to restore their integrity and also to protect them and preserve them for the future,” said Carol Castiel, the founder and president of the Cape Verde Jewish Heritage Project.

Castiel, who is also a director of current affairs programming at Voice of America, learned about the Cape Verdean islands’ Jewish heritage after meeting many Cape Verdean students with Jewish surnames such as Levy, Benchimol and Wahnon.

Castiel devoted herself to studying the Cape Verdean Jewish community’s history and culture. Her organization is in the process of collecting oral testimonies from the descendants and plans to publish a book based on those testimonies and archival research. Castiel also hopes to encourage Jewish tourism to Cape Verde and to restore several more Jewish cemeteries in the islands.

“We want to be the catalyst for more and more people to understand who these people were, why they went there and what their contributions have been to Cape Verdean society, culture and economic development,” Castiel said.

The research to date shows that Sephardic Jews from Morocco and Gibraltar settled in Cape Verde during the mid-19th century. At that point, the Inquisition had been recently abolished in Portugal, and the country had signed a treaty with Great Britain. The Jewish migrants crossed through Gibraltar, a British territory, on their way to Cape Verde in search of economic opportunity.

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“If you look at it, it’s really Moroccan patrimony on Cape Verdean soil,” Castiel said, adding that many of the tombstones list the deceased’s Moroccan cities of origin.

Once settled in Cape Verde, the Jewish immigrants engaged in international commerce, shipping, agriculture, mining and administration, according to the Cape Verde Jewish Heritage Project.

Castiel said none of the tombstones dates before 1821. During the recent renovations in Praia, workers discovered an old tombstone that appeared to have been for a young child named Jacob Azencot.

“We’re really trying to understand more of this 19th century immigration,” Castiel said. “It’s not as sort of romantic or dramatic as the Jews escaping the Inquisition and changing their names, but the problem with this kind of story is that it’s harder to document.”

Salomao Benchimol Monteiro, 78, a Providence resident, knows his great grandfather immigrated to Cape Verde from Morocco when he was 18. He remembers his mother telling him stories that his great-grandfather was a pious Jew who always said his daily prayers. When he died, Jews were not allowed to be interred in Christian cemeteries, so he was buried on his own property, with his tombstone, written in Hebrew, still there today.

“I’ve heard a little about this new project that’s going on. I think that’s a good idea. I know a few other Jews in Cape Verde,” said Monteiro, who immigrated to the United States in 1967 and today is a practicing Catholic.

Many members of the Jewish community assimilated into the islands’ Catholic culture, though that doesn't mean that they attended Mass every Sunday and said rosaries at night.

Benros said his uncle, also a customs official, officially converted to Catholicism but never went to church, which caused him to be harassed by government officials. Today, Benros does not attend a church or synagogue.

Castiel said her research and interviews with the descendants show the Jewish immigrants were relatively welcomed in Cape Verde, and she did not experience anti-Semitism apart from occasional harassment by some members of the clergy.

“The Jewish settlers assimilated over time, but they didn’t go all out,” Castiel said, adding that the Jewish immigrants intermarried with Catholics, but oftentimes did not baptize their children, much to the chagrin of their local priests.

Castiel said the research also shows that the Moroccan Jews immigrated to other Portuguese colonies, including Brazil.

“There were economic opportunities in those places,” Castiel said. “These people were relatively adventurous types, and they had the wherewithal to leave their homes. There were attractive economic reasons for doing so. Morocco at that time had deteriorating economic conditions.”

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With that historical connection, King Mohammed VI of Morocco has been a major benefactor for the Cape Verde Jewish Heritage Project, and one of his counselors is expected to attend the May 2 rededication ceremony. The chief rabbi of Lisbon, members of the Jewish community in Gibraltar and other diplomats are also expected to attend.